Dynamic submission and preference indicator

ABSTRACT

Indicating preference for a content contribution is disclosed. A request for information associated with the content contribution is received from a first entity. The status of the content contribution is determined. A response is provided to the first entity. Determining the status of the content contribution includes determining whether a submission of the content contribution was previously received.

CROSS REFERENCE TO OTHER APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of co-pending U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 13/873,005 (the '005 application), which was filed Apr. 29,2013 and is entitled “Dynamic Submission and Preference Indicator. The'005 application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.12/012,509 (the '509 application), which was filed Feb. 1, 2008 andissued May 28, 2013 as U.S. Pat. No. 8,452,777. The '509 applicationclaims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/899,096,filed Feb. 1, 2007 and entitled “Dynamic Submission and PreferenceIndicator.” The preceding patent applications and provisional patentapplication are incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Publishers typically seek to obtain as many viewers (listeners, users,etc.) of content as possible. For example, a freelance writer with ablog may use advertising on his blog to support himself. It is likelythat the more readers the writer can garner, the more revenue the writerwill receive from the advertisements. Product manufacturers and serviceproviders also typically seek to expose their products/services to asmany individuals as possible. One way of increasing the audience for aparticular piece of content (or other product/service) is to encourageexisting viewers to share their preferences for the content with others.

There thus exists an ongoing need for improved methods of encouragingindividuals to indicate their preferences for content.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Various embodiments of the invention are disclosed in the followingdetailed description and the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1A illustrates an embodiment of an environment for collecting andmanaging content contributions.

FIG. 1B illustrates an embodiment of an interface to a preferencesystem.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process forreceiving a story submission.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process forreceiving a story submission.

FIG. 4 illustrates an embodiment of a story permalink.

FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of an interface to a preference system.

FIG. 6 illustrates an embodiment of an interface to a preference system.

FIG. 7 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process forrecording a preference for a content contribution.

FIG. 8A illustrates an embodiment of a visualization interface.

FIG. 8B illustrates an embodiment of a visualization interface.

FIG. 9 illustrates an embodiment of a visualization interface.

FIG. 10 illustrates an embodiment of a visualization interface.

FIG. 11 illustrates an embodiment of a visualization interface.

FIG. 12A is an example of a content contribution.

FIG. 12B illustrates an embodiment of an interface to a preferencesystem.

FIG. 12C illustrates an embodiment of an interface to a preferencesystem.

FIG. 13A illustrates an embodiment of an interface to a preferencesystem.

FIG. 13B illustrates an embodiment of an interface to a preferencesystem.

FIG. 14 illustrates an embodiment of an interface to a preferencesystem.

FIG. 15A illustrates an embodiment of a dynamic submission andpreference indicator.

FIG. 15B illustrates an embodiment of a dynamic submission andpreference indicator.

FIG. 16 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process forincorporating a dynamic submission and preference indicator on a webpage.

FIG. 17 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process forindicating preference for a content contribution.

FIG. 18 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process forindicating preference for a content contribution.

FIG. 19 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process forindicating preference for a content contribution.

FIG. 20 illustrates an example of a data snippet according to oneembodiment and example responses.

FIG. 21A illustrates an example of a data snippet.

FIG. 21B illustrates an example of a data snippet.

FIG. 21C illustrates an example of a data snippet.

FIG. 21D illustrates an example of a data snippet.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The invention can be implemented in numerous ways, including as aprocess, an apparatus, a system, a composition of matter, a computerreadable medium such as a computer readable storage medium or a computernetwork wherein program instructions are sent over optical orcommunication links. In this specification, these implementations, orany other form that the invention may take, may be referred to astechniques. A component such as a processor or a memory described asbeing configured to perform a task includes a general component that istemporarily configured to perform the task at a given time or a specificcomponent that is manufactured to perform the task. In general, theorder of the steps of disclosed processes may be altered within thescope of the invention.

A detailed description of one or more embodiments of the invention isprovided below along with accompanying figures that illustrate theprinciples of the invention. The invention is described in connectionwith such embodiments, but the invention is not limited to anyembodiment. The scope of the invention is limited only by the claims andthe invention encompasses numerous alternatives, modifications andequivalents. Numerous specific details are set forth in the followingdescription in order to provide a thorough understanding of theinvention. These details are provided for the purpose of example and theinvention may be practiced according to the claims without some or allof these specific details. For the purpose of clarity, technicalmaterial that is known in the technical fields related to the inventionhas not been described in detail so that the invention is notunnecessarily obscured.

FIG. 1A illustrates an embodiment of an environment for collecting andmanaging content contributions. Users, such as user 104, submit content(hereinafter a “story contribution” and a “third party news articlecontribution”) to preference system 102. In the example shown, contentis submitted in part by providing to preference system 102 the uniformresource locator (URL) of a story, such as a story found on web page106.

Preference system 102 includes a web module 108 that provides typicalweb server functionality such as serving website 116, capturing userinput, and providing Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed (110) support.In the example shown, web module 108 is an Apache HTTP server thatsupports running PHP scripts. Web module 108 is interfaced with adatabase 112, such as through a MySQL database backend.

As described in more detail below, users are made aware of the submittedcontent through website 116 and features such as RSS feeds. In additionto providing a link to the content (e.g., a hyperlink to web page 106)and information such as a summary of the story and the date and time itwas submitted, website 116 permits users to indicate their preferencesfor the content by making a variety of interactions. For example, userscan “digg” a story to indicate their like of its content, “bury” a storyto indicate problems with the content, and may also take other actionssuch as commenting on the content. These actions (including the initialsubmission of the content contribution) are referred to hereincollectively as “preference events.”

Whenever a preference event occurs (e.g., whenever a user submits,diggs, buries, or comments on content), the event is recorded indatabase 112 along with associated information such as the identity ofthe user and a time/date stamp. As described in more detail below,information recorded in database 112 is used in a variety of ways, suchas in conjunction with visualization tools that query database 112and/or make use of data extracted from database 112.

In some embodiments, the infrastructure provided by portions ofpreference system 102 is located on and/or replicated across a pluralityof servers rather than the entirety of preference system 102 beingcollocated on a single platform. Such may be the case, for example, ifthe contents of database 112 are vast and/or there are many simultaneousvisitors to site 116.

FIG. 1B illustrates an embodiment of an interface to a preferencesystem. The example shown is an implementation of a portion of website116, as rendered in a browser. A user, known as “Alice” is logged intosite 116. Interface 150 includes a sidebar 152 that provides access tovarious system services. For example, by selecting region 154 of sidebar152, Alice is presented with an interface that permits her to view herprofile and manage account settings such as her current email addressand password; view previous preference events she's taken (her“history”); and access friend-related features described in more detailbelow. Region 156 provides an indication of whether Alice has anymessages and will present her with an interface to a message system(such as a mailbox) if selected. As described in more detail below, byselecting region 158, Alice will be presented with an interface throughwhich she can submit a news story for inclusion on system 102.

Region 160 displays a list of categories into which news stories aregrouped. If “View All” is selected, stories from all categories will bedisplayed in story window 164. As shown, the “Technology” category isselected. In some embodiments, visual indications of what category isselected are presented. In the example shown, the selected category ishighlight (represented here by stippling) at 166, and the title of thecategory appears above story window 164 at 168. In some embodiments,Alice can configure which topics are available to her on site 116. Forexample, if Alice dislikes Sports, she can configure interface 150 tonever show her any sports-related stories, even when viewing using the“View All” option.

Story window 164 typically includes one or more story entries 170. Inthe example shown, a story entry includes the title of a story, as wellas other associated information, such as who submitted the story andwhen, the external URL of the story, the category to which the storybelongs, and a summary of the story. As described in more detail below,links are provided to the story directly (such as by clicking on thetitle), as well as to an area of site 116 associated with the story,referred to herein as the story's permalink. For example, by clicking onthe comments link (176) of the story, Alice will be presented with thecomments portion of the permalink described in more detail below.

Story entry 170 also includes a problem reporting region 178. Users mayreport problems for a variety of reasons. For example, the first storyentry and the third story entry shown describe the same news—scientistssuperheating a gas. Alice has selected the problem, “duplicate” story,from problem reporting region 178. As described in more detail below,this is one form of burying a story. In some embodiments, buried storiesare displayed differently, or removed entirely from the user'sinterface. In the example shown, once a story is buried, it is greyedout, represented here by stippling (180).

As described in more detail below, each story has one or more scoresassociated with it. In the example shown, the “digg” score (172) foreach story is displayed, as is an interactive region beneath the score(box 174) that allows a user to “digg” the story. The first story hasbeen dugg 237 times, but has not been dugg by Alice. As described inmore detail below, if Alice were to select region 174, a variety ofactions would be immediately taken, including increasing the digg scoreof the story and updating the region's text from “digg it” to “dugg!” asshown in region 182.

Alice is currently viewing a “promoted stories” (184) view of storywindow 164. This means that all of the stories presented to Alice on thecurrent view of the interface have exceeded a promotion threshold. Oneexample of a promotion threshold is the raw number of diggs. Otherrequirements/factors may be used for thresholding in addition to orinstead of a digg score, such as requiring that a certain amount of timeelapse between story submission and story promotion, the speed withwhich stories are being dugg, information associated with users thathave dugg the story, etc. Because some threshold of users must agreethat a story has merit before being promoted, stories shown in promotedview 184 are unlikely to contain spam or otherwise be inherentlyinappropriate for Alice's viewing.

In some embodiments, different thresholds are used for differentstories, such as for stories in different categories. For example, thepromotion of a math related story may only require 100 diggs whereas astory about the president may require 500 diggs.

If Alice selects the upcoming stories tab (186), only stories which havenot yet met the appropriate threshold will be displayed. For example,newly submitted stories which have not yet been “dugg” by a sufficientnumber of people will be presented by selecting tab 186. In someembodiments, if a story languishes in the upcoming stories pool for morethan a certain period of time without receiving a sufficient digg scoreto be promoted (e.g., for a week), the story is removed from the pooland can only be found via its permalink or through a search. In someembodiments, such stories are deleted from database 112. Such storiesare typically indicative of spam, inaccuracies, and old news. Similarly,if enough users bury a story, the story may be removed from the pooland/or database 112.

In other embodiments, other views of stories may be presented asapplicable, such as a view that unifies both the promoted and theupcoming stories. In the example shown, because Alice has selected the“Technology” category (166), only technology related stories arepresented in the promoted stories (184) and upcoming stories (186)views. Similarly, the topics of the presented stories (e.g., “Math,” areall subtopics of Technology). In some embodiments, the informationpresented with the story entry may vary, such as from topic to topic.For example, if Alice selected “View All” at 160, the listed topic maybe the top level category to which the story belongs (e.g.,“Technology”) or include a drilled down description (e.g., “WorldNews—Canada—Elections”).

As described in more detail below, portion 162 of interface 150 displaysthe recent activities (preference events) of Alice's friends. Forexample, in the last 48 hours, Alice's friends have submitted twostories, dugg twelve stories, and commented on sixteen stories, asreflected in dashboard 162. Of the twelve stories her friends have dugg,four of the stories have not yet been promoted. In some embodiments,assorted visual cues of her friends' activity are presented throughoutwebsite 116. In the example shown, stories dugg by Alice's friends arenotated by a banner (184) placed across the digg score. In other cases,other cues may be used, such as by changing the color of the story,and/or interactive behavior such as playing a sound or showing thefriend's avatar icon when, for example, Alice's cursor hovers over astory dugg by a friend.

Region 188 displays a list of tools, such as visualization tools, thatAlice can use to view and interact with content and/or preferenceevents.

Story Submission

FIG. 2 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process forreceiving a story submission. This process may be implemented onpreference server 102. In the example shown, the process begins at 202when information associated with a story is received. For example, insome embodiments at 202, information such as the URL of a story and asummary of the story located at that URL is received.

At 204, one or more checks are performed. As described in more detailbelow, examples of checks include checking to make sure the URL is validand does not, for example, contain a typo; checking for duplicatestories; determining whether the story submission appears on a blacklistor is otherwise to be blocked; determining whether the story is beingsubmitted by a blacklisted user; determining whether the story is beingsubmitted by an anonymous proxy, etc. At 206, it is determined whetherthe story should be accepted.

In some embodiments, if the story submission fails any of the checksperformed at 204, the story is rejected at 210. In some embodiments, athreshold is applied to whether or not a story is accepted at 208. Forexample, a story that appears to be a duplicate may be flagged forreview by an administrator, may be provisionally marked as a potentialduplicate, may be accepted so long as no other checks are failed, etc.In some embodiments, the identity of the submitter is taken intoconsideration when determining whether to accept a story. The decisionof whether to accept the story may be based at least in part on factorssuch as the length of time the user has been a registered user of site116, whether the user has previously submitted inappropriate content,and/or a score assigned to the user.

Typically, the information received at 202 is received through a webinterface, such as a story submission form that can be accessed, byselecting region 158 of interface 150. Other methods of submission mayalso be used, as appropriate. For example, an external website, such asa user's blog could be configured to provide an interface to server 102.Submission may also be automated, such as by syndicating a news feed toa story submission component executing the process shown in FIG. 202. Asdescribed in more detail below, submissions of the information receivedat 202 can also occur through the use of an application programinterface (API), browser plugin, etc.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process forreceiving a story submission. In the example shown, the process isimplemented on preference server 102 and is an example implementation ofthe process shown in FIG. 2. The process begins at 302 when anindication that a story is being submitted is received. Suppose Alicewishes to submit a story. When she selects region 158 of interface 150,server 102 is notified at 302.

At 304, it is determined whether the submitting user is logged into site116. If not, the user is presented with a page at which he or she cancreate an account or log in to an existing account. After completingregistration and/or logging in, the user is directed back to the storysubmission interface (not shown).

A logged in user, such as Alice, is then presented with an interfacethrough which a story may be submitted such as a web form. At 308, a URLis received, such via Alice entering the URL into the form.

System 102 maintains a block list that includes URLs that, e.g., havebeen reported by administrators as spam sites, fraudulent sites, etc. Ifa threshold number of users report a story (such as through region 178of interface 150), the story may be automatically added to the blocklist. At 310 it is determined whether the URL is present on the list ofblocked URLs. In some embodiments, instead of or in addition tomaintaining a list of block URLs, system 102 checks for blocked URLs inconjunction with a third party, such as a commercial anti-spam registry.If the submitted URL appears on the blocked list, the user is presentedwith an error at 312. In various embodiments, the error indicates to theuser the problem with the URL, such as that the URL belongs to a knownspammer. In such cases, the user may be presented with the option ofchallenging the block. In other embodiments, a user submitting a blockedURL is not told why the URL is blocked, or may not be told that the URLis blocked at all. For example, a spurious “system configuration” errormay be presented to the user to help minimize attempts at circumventingchecks.

At 314, it is determined whether the URL can be reached. One way ofperforming this check is to make use of a tool such as curl or wget. Ifthe URL cannot be reached, for example because of a typo (e.g., HTTPStatus Code 404) or because accessing the URL requires a login/password(e.g., HTTP Status Code 401), the user is presented with an error at316. In various embodiments, the user is permitted to revise andresubmit a failed URL without having to restart the process at 302.

Duplicate checking is performed on the URL at 318. In some embodiments,the check performed looks only for exact matches of the URL. In otherembodiments, fuzzy or other matching is applied.

If it is determined that the submitted URL is a duplicate of, or similarto a URL previously submitted to server 302, at 320 the user ispresented with a list of the previously submitted story or stories. Insome cases, the new story submission is a duplicate of an existing storysubmission. In other cases, however, the stories may be distinct,despite sharing a common URL. Such may be the case, for example, with acorporate website that always posts new press releases to the same URL,such as “www.company.com/news.html.” Suppose Alice submits a URL that isalready stored in database 112. At 320 she is asked to compare her storyagainst the other story or stories submitted under that URL (324). Forexample, the interface may present to her a list of the existing storiesmatching her submitted URL in a format similar to story window 164 shownin FIG. 1B. If the story she wishes to submit has already beensubmitted, she can digg the existing story (326), rather than submittinga duplicate. If her story is not a duplicate, she can continue with thesubmission. In various embodiments, considerations such as thesophistication of the user determine whether an exact duplicate URL willbe permitted or whether the user will be forced to digg one of thestories presented on the duplicate list instead of submitting the newstory submission.

At 322, the user is prompted to supply additional information about thestory submission, such as the story's title, a summary of the story, andto which category or categories it belongs. In some embodiments, theinformation collected at 322 is received at the same time that the URLis received (308) and portion 322 of the process shown in FIG. 3 isomitted.

At 328, additional checks are performed on the story. For example, aspam story may escape detection at 310. Such may be the case if the spamwas recently created or is an attempt to unscrupulously drive traffic toa previously legitimate page and is not already present in a blacklist.One check that can be performed at 328 includes applying spam detectiontechniques to the text located at the submitted URL and/or the title orsummary provided by the user. Additional checks may also be employed inaddition to or instead of spam checks at 328. For example, adetermination may be made of whether the submitter (e.g., Alice) isconnecting to site 116 via an anonymous proxy. If it is determined at328 that the submission is spam or should otherwise not be accepted, at330, the submission is rejected. In some embodiments, the submission is“silently” rejected—the user is shown a “successful” dialogue when infact the story is rejected. In other embodiments, the user is presentedwith an error, such as the error presented at 312.

Additional duplication checks are performed on the story at 332. In someembodiments, the submitted title and summary of the story are comparedagainst the titles and summaries of stories already submitted to server102. In some embodiments, the page is crawled and a full text match(such as a MySQL full text search) is performed against the submittedstory and previously submitted stories. In such a case, database 112 isconfigured to store at least portions of the crawls in addition toinformation associated with the story. If it is determined that thestory is a potential duplicate, at 334 the user is presented the optionof digging the story (336) or submitting it anyway.

When a story is accepted at 338, an entry for the story submission iscreated in database 112. Information such as the submission time and theuser who submitted the story are stored and counts associated with thestory, such as its digg score, are set to zero. The story becomesaccessible in the upcoming stories view (e.g., 186 of FIG. 1B).

Information in one or more tables 114 is also updated to includeinformation associated with the new story, for example for use inconjunction with searching, and with visualizations discussed in moredetail below. Additionally, information associated with the submittinguser is modified as appropriate. For example, a count of the number ofstories submitted by the user is incremented, and the story is madeavailable in areas such as the user's profile and the profile areas ofthe user's friends, if applicable.

As described in more detail below, a permalink for the story can beaccessed by visitors to site 116 and contains content assembleddynamically from the information stored in database 112. In system 102,the permalink's URL is created by stripping disallowed characters (suchas punctuation) from the submitted story's title and appending digits asnecessary to avoid collisions. So, for example, if Alice's submittedstory were titled “New Species of Bird Discovered,” once accepted at338, information associated with the submitted story would be accessibleat the URL,“http://www.digg.com/science/New_Species_of_Bird_Discovered.html.”

Also at 338, if the user has specified blogging information, such as ausername and password of an account on a blogging service, the submittedstory is posted to the user's blog. Information such as the summaryand/or title of the story can be automatically copied into the blogsubmission and/or edited by the user prior to submission. For example,if Alice has specified the details of her blog account in her profile(reachable by selecting portion 154 of interface 150), when submittingstory submissions, she can specify whether she'd like the story to alsoappear in her blog. If Alice has not configured her blog settings, theability to blog can be greyed out, hidden, and or explained at 338, asapplicable.

Recording and Reflecting Preference Events

FIG. 4 illustrates an embodiment of a story permalink. The example shownis an implementation of a portion of website 116 as rendered in abrowser. Story 402 was recently submitted to server 102 (26 minutesago), through the process depicted in FIG. 2. When Alice visits thepermalink of story 402, topic region 160 of sidebar 152 automaticallyexpands and highlights the topic with which story 402 is associated (inthis case, “Science”). The story was submitted by David, who also duggthe story. Alice has David listed under her profile as her friend. As aresult, the digg count includes a visual indication 404 that story 402was dugg by a friend. In some cases, Alice and David know each other andhave each other, mutually, on their list of friends. In other cases, therelation may be one sided. For example, David may be a columnist orfamous personality whose opinion Alice values.

The digg score of story 402 is currently two (404) and the story has notmet the threshold(s) required for the story to be promoted out of the“upcoming stories” area.

In the interface shown in FIG. 4, Alice can click digg box 406 toindicate her preference for the story. In some embodiments, additionalactions are taken when Alice diggs a story. For example, if she hasconfigured her blog settings, Alice can specify that stories that shediggs be posted to her blog as she diggs them. Similarly, Alice canconfigure her personal website (e.g., with a JavaScript) toautomatically syndicate recent activities taken in response to stories.

She can report a problem with the story (bury it) by selecting an optionfrom problem dropdown 408. Story reporting options include “duplicate”story (to report that story 402 is a duplicate of another story), “badlink” (to report that the link to the full text of the story isdefective), “spam” (to indicate that the story is fraudulent or spam),“inaccurate” (to indicate that there are factual problems with thestory), and “old news” and “this is lame” to indicate that the story isnot newsworthy. In some embodiments, bury events are anonymous site wideand are not replicated, for example, in a user's publicly accessiblydigging history. One reason for this is to minimize the chances of a“flame war” occurring, for example, when a well known user negativelyrates a story or comment.

As described in more detail below, region 410 displays comments thatusers have made about story 402. Thus far, a total of five comments havebeen left about story 402, two of which were left by Alice's friends.Alice can submit comments by entering information into region 412 ofFIG. 4.

In region 414, Alice is currently viewing a list of all the users whodugg story 402. Suppose David is Alice's friend, but Legolas is not. IfAlice selects friends tab 416, the view in region 414 will change toshow only David's name and avatar icon.

In region 418, Alice is currently viewing a list of the users who haveblogged story 402. Charlie is the only person who has blogged the storyso far and he is not Alice's friend. Therefore, if Alice were to selectfriends tab 420, no names would be shown.

Alice can submit this story to her own blog by entering in optional textin region 422 and selecting region 424. Alice can email the story to oneor more addresses by entering them into region 426 and selecting region428.

As shown, all of the information associated with a particular story(e.g., title/summary of the story, digg score, comments, who has bloggedthe story, etc.) is displayed on a single page. In other embodiments,the information is presented across multiple pages, such as with atabbed view with one or more tabs for each component.

FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of an interface to a preference system.The example shown is an implementation of portion 410 of website 116, asrendered in a browser. In the example shown, Alice is viewing commentsassociated with a story. The story currently has eight comments (502),sorted by date. A threshold of −4 diggs or higher has also been applied(518). Thus comment 516, which has been buried 75 times, is hidden. Inthe example shown, only the header of a buried comment is displayed,along with a link to reveal the hidden comment (522). Additionally, theheader of comment 516 is greyed out to help a user visually distinguishbetween buried and nonburied comments.

Comment 504 was written by Bob, one of Alice's friends, as was comment506 (written by David). In this example, comments written by friends aredistinguished from other comments, such as through having a differentlycolored header. Comments dugg by friends are also distinguished. Thus,while CharlieB is not Alice's friend, his comment (508) is distinguishedbecause it was dugg by Bob, who is Alice's friend, as also indicated bythe inclusion of Bob's name and a star on the header of comment 508. Thenumber of comments left by and/or dugg by her friends is indicated at514.

In the example shown, Bob has written an informative comment, which 18people have dugg. If desired, Alice can digg or bury Bob's comment byselecting the appropriate icon at 520. In the example shown, the diggicon is a green thumb pointing up. The bury icon is a red thumb pointingdown. As described in more detail below, if Alice selects one of theicons, Bob's comment score is immediately updated and the thumbs aregreyed out to indicate to Alice that she's already registered herpreference for Bob's comment.

Suppose Alice finds comment 510 to be off topic or otherwise unhelpful.If she chooses to bury the comment, in the example shown, a variety ofchanges will occur in the interface immediately. The comment score forcomment 510 will decrement by one point. Additionally, comment 510 willcollapse down to just the header, which will grey out. If Alice findsthe poster of the comment, Legolas, a sufficient nuisance, she can blockhim by selecting block icon 524. In this example, if Alice selects theblock icon, she will never be shown any content from Legolas again,site-wide, unless she later chooses to unblock him, such as throughsettings in her profile. Thus, by selecting block icon 524, Alice willnot see comments made by Legolas, stories posted by Legolas, etc.,unless and until she chooses to unblock him.

In some embodiments, if enough people bury a comment, the comment isremoved from the site and/or reported to an administrator. Similarly, ifenough people block a user, in some embodiments, the user is reported toan administrator and/or banned from accessing site features.

If desired, Alice can submit one or more comments of her own. Forexample, she may reply to an existing comment by selecting the replybutton associated with the comment (526), or create a new comment bysubmitting text through region 528. In some embodiments, Alice is givena portion of time during which she may edit the comment, such as withinfive minutes of submitting the comment.

As described in more detail below, when Alice submits or diggs acomment, that preference event is recorded in database 112, her profileand the profiles of her friends are immediately updated, and associatedRSS files are updated.

FIG. 6 illustrates an embodiment of an interface to a preference system.The example shown is an implementation of a portion of website 116reached by selecting region 154, as rendered in a browser. In thisexample, Alice is viewing her profile (hereinafter “interface 602”),which has been subdivided into several tabbed views (604-610). A profileprovides access to a variety of information, some of which may bepublicly viewable, and some of which may be kept private. For example,Alice can change account settings such as specifying her email addressand password by selecting portion 604 of interface 602. Visitors toAlice's profile will be presented with a subset of the informationavailable to Alice. For example, while Alice sees tab 604 being labeled“Profile+Settings,” a visitor to Alice's profile would see tab 604 asleading to Alice's “Profile” only. Similarly, tab 608, which byselecting allows Alice to add and remove friends, is only available toAlice and is hidden from visitors to her profile. Alice can also addfriends by visiting other users' profiles and selecting an “add thisuser as my friend” option located in the profile.

Alice has currently selected to view her friends' history by selectingportion 610 of interface 602. The information presented can be furthercustomized by selecting from subsets of information. For example, ifAlice selects portion 620 of interface 602, she will be presented with alisting of all of the stories that have been dugg by at least one of herfriends. If she selects portion 622, she will be presented with a listof stories that have been dugg by at least one of her friends but havenot yet been promoted. If she selects portion 626, Alice will bepresented with a list of stories submitted by her friends, and byselecting portion 628, Alice will be presented with a list of storiesthat have been commented on by her friends. Other information (notshown) may also be presented in other embodiments, such as a list ofcomments that Alice and/or her friends have dugg.

In the example shown, Alice has selected to view stories “agreed on” byher friends (624). Each of the stories listed in this view have beendugg by at least three of Alice's friends. In various embodiments, Alicecan configure the threshold and specify such information as the numberof friends (or total number of diggs) required for a story to be agreedupon and/or define particular individuals whose digg is necessary for astory to be considered agreed upon, keywords that must be present in thestory, etc. By making use of the “agreed on” view, Alice can readilydiscern the most important stories, even if she has thousands offriends. (E.g., if she sets the threshold to “agreed on by at least 10friends,” and has 1000 friends, the number of stories she is presentedwith is likely to be manageable and especially relevant or interesting.)

Region 616 of interface 602 indicates that four of Alice's friends havedugg story 632. Alice can also see which of her friends have dugg story632 by hovering her input device over the digg score box of story 632.In some embodiments, Alice can interact with region 616, such as bybeing presented with a dialogue that offers to send an email to all ofher friends listed in the region.

By selecting portion 606 of interface 602, both Alice, and visitors toAlice's profile will be presented with Alice's history in a formatsimilar to that currently shown, but limited to activities taken byAlice. Additionally, Alice may “undigg” stories and comments that shepreviously dugg by visiting her history.

All of the views described in conjunction with FIG. 6, such as stories“Agreed On” by Alice's friends can by syndicated as RSS feeds byselecting RSS link 614 on the appropriate page view. In someembodiments, profile visitors (including Alice) are presented with theoption to search (630) all of site 116 for content (634), search Alice'sdiggs for content (636) and/or search diggs made by Alice's friends forcontent (638).

When a user takes certain actions, such as digging a story or burying acomment, the results of that action are reflected immediately, withoutthe user being directed to a “success” page or the appearance of, e.g.,a page refresh occurring to the user. For example, suppose Bob haslisted Alice as his friend. Whenever Alice submits a new story, that newstory immediately appears on Bob's “Friends—Submitted” list and iswritten to the associated RSS file. Similarly, whenever David commentson an article, that fact is immediately reflected under Alice's tab 628as shown in FIG. 6. As described herein, pages served by web module 108include Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax) components. Othertechniques may also be used to dynamically update site 116 as renderedin a browser as appropriate.

FIG. 7 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process forrecording a preference for a content contribution. The process begins at702 when an indication that a preference event has occurred is received.For example, when Alice selects digg box 406 shown in FIG. 4, herpreference is received at 702. Other examples of preference eventsinclude submitting a story, burying a story, and commenting on a story.At 704, the preference event is associated with the content contributionand any associated scores are updated as applicable. For example, at704, Alice and story 402 are linked in database 112 and the digg scoreof story 402 is increased in database 112 from two to three. At 706,information associated with the user's profile is updated. For example,as described in more detail in conjunction with FIG. 6, views of Alice'sdigging history (including the friends views of users who have listedAlice as a friend) are updated to include the dugg story and anindication that Alice dugg it. Any RSS files associated with her profileand the profiles of those who have her listed as a friend will also beupdated as appropriate.

Visualizations

FIG. 8A illustrates an embodiment of a visualization interface. Theexample shown is an implementation of a portion of website 116 asrendered in a browser. In this example, interface 800 (also referred toherein as the digg “spy” interface and a “ticker” interface) isconfigured to present a real time visualization of preference eventsoccurring on preference system 102.

In the example shown, a user such as Alice can specify which stories tospy on. For example, she can spy on all stories (802), stories whichhave not yet been promoted (804), or just promoted stories (806).Further specification of a subset of stories can also be applied, asapplicable. For example, in various embodiments, a user can specify akey word that must be present in all stories being spied upon, and/orspy on stories in specified categories (not shown), and/or spy on eventstaken by friends only.

Additionally, a user can specify the types of preference events to bespied upon. In the example shown, Alice has checked (would like to see)all types of activity—new story submissions (indicated by icon 810),diggs (indicated by icon 812), buries (indicated by icon 814), andcomments (indicated by icon 816).

One way of implementing the visualization shown in FIG. 8A is asfollows. As a preference event occurs, it is recorded in database 112.Maintained within database 112 are a main database table and foursmaller tables 114—one for each type of event. The event is alsorecorded (either concurrently with, or on a periodic basis such as byway of an update function) in the respective smaller table thatcorresponds with the event. In some embodiments, filtering is applied sothat, for example, only commenting of registered users is recorded inthe comment table but all commenting is recorded in the main table. Aflag in the main database (e.g., a “do not report this to spy” flag) canalso be set that indicates whether information associated with aparticular story or user should be copied to the smaller tables 114.Alice is a typical user whose diggs are recorded in the main databasetable, as well as the smaller table that records only diggs.

When Alice first visits interface 800 with her browser, and on arecurring basis after that (such as every 20 seconds, or whenever thepool of events is running low), batches of information are retrievedfrom server 102 in a scope commensurate with the options selected (whichdocuments to spy on and for which activities). Specifically, the mostrecent content from each of the smaller tables 114 is retrieved fromserver 102 and stored locally, such as in Alice's browser. AsynchronousJavaScript and XML (Ajax) components in interface 800 cause theinformation to displayed to Alice, for example, at a rate of one eventper second, depending on which information she would like to view. Insome embodiments, Alice can control the speed of the display, such asthrough playback controls 808.

In some cases, such as with heavy digging activity, there may besufficiently more than 20 diggs occurring site-wide during the twentysecond interval between the times that Alice's browser fetches a newbatch of digging information. Thus, after twenty seconds have elapsed,system 102 may have recorded 200 digg events—significantly more than the20 digg events that Alice periodically fetches. In some embodiments,only the most recent 20 actions are fetched. Thus, every twenty seconds,Alice requests the 20 most recent events and will never see anyintervening events.

In other embodiments, the number of events fetched adjusts in accordancewith the speed with which the events are occurring. In such case, all ofthe events are fetched and the rate with which they are displayed issped up (showing one every tenth of a second if there are 200) or sloweddown (showing one every five seconds if there are only four) asappropriate. In some embodiments, a sampling of activity is takenthroughout the period so that if 200 events occur during the 20 secondinterval, a random sample of 20 will be supplied to Alice's browser.

In the example shown in FIG. 8A, Alice has been viewing interface 800for six seconds. Six events (830-840) are displayed, with the mostrecent (840) displayed at the top. As a new event is displayed, thealready displayed events are pushed down the display. Thus, for example,at time t1 (when Alice first began watching the interface), only event830 was presented. At time t2 (one second later), event 832 wasdisplayed above event 830, pushing event 830 down the screen. At time t3(one second after time t2), event 834 was displayed, pushing events 832and 830 each down one position, respectively.

By consulting the column descriptions (842), Alice can see that event830 was a submission of a new story (818), titled “Scientists DiscoverNew Type of Bird” (822), that the story was submitted by CharlieB(824)), and that the story is currently unpromoted (826) with a diggscore of 1 (820). When event 832 appears in the display at time t2,Alice can see that event 832 was a comment by Legolas on a story titled“How to Make a USB Powered Alarm Clock” that currently has a digg scoreof 33 and has been promoted out of the upcoming stories queue. At timet3, Alice can see that David posted a new story titled “New Species ofBird Discovered.” At time t4, David's story was reported as being aduplicate story (828). The identity of a user burying something is notshown. Instead, only the reason for the bury (such as duplicate story,inaccurate story, old news, etc.) is shown. In other embodiments, otherinformation can be displayed, as applicable.

In FIG. 8A, the displayed digg count for a story is shown as what it wasat the time the event occurred. Thus, when event 838 (a digg of “How toMake a USB Powered Alarm Clock” by Bob) occurs, the digg count of thestory is shown as 33. The next time the story is dugg, the updated scoreis shown, such as when event 840 occurs. If the digg events arehappening sufficiently quickly that some of them are not displayed toAlice, she might see gaps between the scores. For example, if 50 diggsof the alarm clock story occur in the next few seconds, Alice may onlybe presented with the most recent digg and the updated total (e.g., 83diggs).

FIG. 8B illustrates an embodiment of a visualization interface. Theexample shown is an implementation of a portion of website 116 asrendered in a browser being used by Alice. In this example, interface850 is configured to present a visualization of newly submitted stories.After a new story is submitted, such as through the submission interfacedescribed in conjunction with FIG. 3, it is represented in interface 850as a green square falling from the top of the screen, and landing at thebottom. Any stories already existing on the page (e.g., 858, 882, 856,and 854) are shifted to the left to make room for the new story (852).In some embodiments, stories are removed from the left side to makespace for stories on the right side. In other cases, the width of thestories shown decreases to accommodate more stories as they are added tothe interface. The length of time that a user has been viewing interface850 is shown here as a timeline, with the time that Alice first startedviewing interface 850 on the left (866) and the current time on theright (868).

In the example shown, eleven new stories have been submitted since Alicebegan viewing interface 150. Statistical information such as the numberof stories submitted, the rate with which they are being submitted,etc., is indicated at 870. As preference events associated with thestories displayed in interface 850 occur, they are also indicated ininterface 850. For example, when a story is dugg, the event isrepresented by a digg icon, such as the one shown at 812 in FIG. 8Afalling from the top of the screen and onto the heap of thecorresponding story, increasing the size of the heap if it is a digg,and decreasing the size of the heap if it is a bury. For example, at860, a digg of story 858 is shown falling down onto the story'sgraphical representation and will increase the height of the story boxwhen it lands. A variety of indicators, such as colors and avatars canbe used to indicate the occurrence of preference events in addition toor instead of the icons shown in FIG. 8A.

At 864, a bury of story 882 is shown falling down onto that story'sgraphical representation and will decrease the height of the story boxwhen it lands. In the example shown, the bury is indicated by the buryicon shown at 814 in FIG. 8A. The identity of the user burying the storyis not shown (as it can be in the case of other preference events), butby hovering her mouse over bury 864, Alice is shown a dialogue thatincludes the reason that the bury was submitted (e.g., “spam”).

In some embodiments, additional elements are included, such as theanimation shown at 880 (of a missile about to strike heap 882), andindications of who is taking the action. For example, diggs 860 and 862are being performed by friends of Alice. She is alerted to this fact bybubbles accompanying the digg action being performed that indicate theirnames and/or avatars. The look of interface 850 can be skinned in someembodiments—Alice can specify that she desires the interface to have amilitaristic theme, such as in the example shown, or other themes, suchas ones in which animals “eat” stories or multiply.

The relative popularity of newly submitted stories is indicated by therelative heights of the stories shown in interface 850. For example,story 884 is a very popular story, while story 856 is not.

In the example shown, only newly submitted stories are shown. Interface850 can also be scoped to represent other portions of activity. Forexample, Alice can specify that she wants to observe only actions takenby her friends (or groups of her friends), but across all stories, newor old. Alice can also specify that she wants to observe only actionsthat include a particular keyword, actions occurring only in particularcategories or subcategories, etc. Alice can also specify particularstories she wishes to monitor, such as by selecting a link on the page'spermalink that reads, “add this story to my incoming view.” Alice canalso “pin” the stories shown in interface 850. When she hovers her mouseover a particular story shown in interface 850, one element that isrevealed is a pushpin icon which, if selected, causes the story toremain in region 886 of interface 850, and/or be added to a list offavorites (878).

A variety of graphical tools are shown on the left hand side ofinterface 850. They include charts of information such as which storiesin the last hour have been most popular 876, the relative rankings ofstories that Alice is monitoring (has pinned) 878, a more comprehensiveview (i.e., including information predating Alice's current interactionswith interface 850), etc. At 872, the story entry 170 of a story thatAlice hovers her mouse over, such as story 854, is displayed and she caninteract with the story entry 170 such as digging it or burying itaccordingly.

FIG. 9 illustrates an embodiment of a visualization interface. Theexample shown is an implementation of a portion of website 116 asrendered in a browser. In this example, interface 900 is configured topresent a visualization of the genealogy of the diggs (also referred toherein as a “tree view”) of a story on preference system 102.

In the example shown, story 902 was originally submitted by the userDavid. When he successfully submitted the story, it appeared in hisprofile, as well as in the Friends History (e.g., at 610 of FIG. 6) ofthe several people who have listed David as their friend. Suppose tenpeople have David as a friend, including users 904, 908, and 912 andseven users not pictured. After David submitted the story, friends 904,908, and 912 dugg story 902, either through their own friends pages, orthrough David's profile. They are displayed in interface 900 asconnected to David. Users who have David listed as a friend who did notdigg the story are not displayed in interface 900. Users 906 and 910 donot have David as a friend, but dugg the story through visiting hisprofile. As a result, they are also shown connected to David.

When users 904-912 dugg story 902, that action was recorded in theirrespective user profiles as well. Visitors to their profiles, and thosewho list them as friends who digg the story will be shown connected tothem, the way they are shown connected to David. If expansion tab 914 isselected, interface 900 will continue to provide detail down the tree(those who dugg story 902 through user 916, and so on).

One use of the tree view is that users can trace how their friendslearned about stories and meet new friends. For example, if Alicenotices that Bob diggs a lot of cryptography stories, she can determinewhere Bob diggs them from—does he submit the stories himself, or is hemainly digging stories submitted by CharlieB—and add new friends (suchas CharlieB) as appropriate.

FIG. 10 illustrates an embodiment of a visualization interface. Theexample shown is an implementation of a portion of website 116 reachedby selecting region 186 of FIG. 1B as rendered in a browser. In thisexample, Alice is viewing upcoming stories, which may be displayed in avariety of ways. If she selects region 902, Alice will be presented withupcoming stories in a format similar to that shown in the story window164 shown in FIG. 1B (including one or more story entries 170).

In the example shown, Alice has selected to view the upcoming stories ina cloud view by selecting tab 904. In this view, the title of each storyin the upcoming queue is visualized as a function of the number of diggsit has. Stories with few diggs are shown in a very small font, and maybe colored in a subtle manner, such as by being displayed in grey.Stories with many diggs are shown in a very large font and may bedisplayed in another color, such as red or black. Stories dugg byfriends are also shown in a different color, such as green, irrespectiveof number of diggs. In some embodiments, additional information isreceived from the interface shown in FIG. 10 by taking an action such ashovering a mouse over a story title. In such case, information such asthe current digg score of the story, which if any friends have dugg thestory, and/or the story entry 170 of FIG. 1B is shown.

Which stories will appear in the cloud view can be configured, such asby selecting one or more categories to view or limiting the view tostories dugg by friends. The cloud view can also be sorted by a varietyof factors. As shown, the newest (most recently submitted) stories areshown at the top, and older stories are shown at the bottom of FIG. 10.If the stories were sorted by most diggs, then stories rendered in thelargest font would appear first and stories rendered in the smallestfont would appear last. Other sorting methods may also be used, such asby sorting by most or least comments.

FIG. 11 illustrates an embodiment of a visualization interface. Theexample shown is an implementation of a portion of website 116 reachedby selecting the appropriate portion of region 188 of FIG. 1B asrendered in a browser. In this example, Alice is viewing upcomingstories. Users are shown represented by their avatar icons, or by moregeneralized shapes. As they digg a story, their icon is shown “swarming”around the story in real time—the avatar moves near the story the useris digging, as do the avatars of the other users currently digging thestory. In some embodiments, the size of the user's avatar (or otherrepresentation of the user) increases and decreases based on the numberof stories they are currently digging.

In some embodiments, only recent activity is shown—such as diggs in thelast 10 minutes. Stories with more activities (such as diggs andcomments) will appear larger than stories with fewer activities. In someembodiments, additional information is received from the interface shownin FIG. 11 by taking an action, such as hovering a mouse over a storytitle. In such case, information such as the current digg score of thestory, which if any friends have dugg the story, and/or the story entry170 of FIG. 1B, is shown. The links between stories can also be shown,indicating, for example, that several of the same people that dugg aparticular first story also dugg a second story, by connecting the twostories with a line. Indicators such as the color or width of the linecan show how strong or weak the connection is between the stories.

Additional Embodiments

In some embodiments, a plugin and/or add-on to a computer programproduct is used to provide digging (and/or burying, commenting, andsubmitting) functionality. The plugin/add-on is associated with aninterface to server 102 which may include functions that determinewhether a permalink already exists for the submission, and invokeprocessing of a new submission, a comment, etc., as appropriate.

For example, a plugin to a web browser (e.g., a Firefox extension) canbe configured to offer a user the ability to digg an item directly fromthe context in which it is encountered without having to visit thesubmission interface described in conjunction with FIG. 3 or a permalinksuch as the one shown in FIG. 4. For example, a notification embedded ina page or overlayed such as by the browser can indicate whether the pagea user is currently browsing has been submitted as a story contributionyet. If not, a user can interact with the notification, such as byclicking on an interface that reads, “this page has not yet beensubmitted to digg.com, submit it now.” Similarly, if the page hasalready been submitted, such as by a different user, the notificationmay take a variety of forms, such as an overlay of the current diggscore (172) and a digg box, or a change, for example, in the backgroundcolor, or some other element of the page.

Configurable dropdowns and/or overlays can also be provided to alert auser of certain activity. For example, the user can set an alert toreceive notification when new stories having certain keywords aresubmitted to server 102. Notification can also be provided for friends'digging activities as they occur, such as that a friend has just dugg astory or commented on a product.

As used herein, content contributions are pointers to content (e.g.,news articles and podcasts) that is stored outside of preference system102, typically by a third party. In some embodiments, users submit thecontent itself (e.g. the full text of articles, and the audio file)rather than or in addition to a pointer to the content, and thetechniques described herein are adapted accordingly. The terms“content,” “content contribution,” and “pointers to content” are usedherein interchangeably. As described in more detail below, contentcontributions are not limited to news articles. Other content (such asproducts, services, songs, sounds, photographs, and video) can besubmitted, dugg, buried, and commented on and the techniques describedherein can be adapted as appropriate. Preference events taken on thosetypes of content may likewise be associated with a profile and sharedwith friends in a manner similar to that described, for example, inconjunction with FIG. 6.

FIG. 12A is an example of a content contribution. The example shownrepresents a restaurant submission. The name of the restaurant (1200) isincluded, as is information such as who submitted the restaurant, theURL of the restaurant, the type of cuisine it serves (1202), and thegeneral location of the restaurant (1204). Users may perform suchactions as searching for restaurants by cuisine type and/or location,and limiting results to ones having a threshold number of diggs.Restaurants having no or few diggs can be displayed as “upcomingrestaurants,” separated from “promoted restaurants” which have diggscores exceeding a threshold. Users can also supply additionalinformation about their preferences for the reference, such as bysupplying one or more tags (1202) that indicate attributes such as“ambiance” or signature dishes. As described in more detail below, whichfields/tags are collected at submission time (and which, if any, can beadded subsequently) and shown can be configured as appropriate dependingon the type of content. For example, in the case of a product, a stockphoto of the product may be included.

FIG. 12B illustrates an embodiment of an interface to a preferencesystem. In the example shown, the interface unifies a user's preferencefor things across multiple genres of content. For example, the user candigg for news (1250), videos (1252), and restaurants (1254) all throughthe same interface. As described in more detail below, the friendsfeatures described above can also be used in conjunction with othertypes of content contributions. For example, using the interface shownin FIG. 12B, a visitor to Alice's profile can learn which news storiesshe's been digging as well as learn which restaurants she diggs ordoesn't digg. Similarly, Alice can customize the views of each of thetabs (1250, 1252, 1254) to display only restaurants her friends ofagreed on, restaurants nearby (e.g., by selecting a region on a map orentering a ZIP code) that at least one friend has dugg, etc.

FIG. 12C illustrates an embodiment of an interface to a preferencesystem. In the example shown, digging functionality has been combinedwith mapping functionality. When a user searches a map, such as aweb-based map service, for nearby restaurants, entries on the mapinclude an indication of the number of diggs a business has had and theability to digg or comment on the business directly from the mapinterface.

FIG. 13A illustrates an embodiment of an interface to a preferencesystem. The example shown is an implementation of a portion of website116 which includes the ability to submit, digg, and comment on products(including software), as rendered in a browser. In this example, Alicehas selected to view products agreed on by her friends (1322).

Alice can submit a new product review by selecting portion 1302 ofinterface 1300. She can view products in one or more categories byselecting the appropriate portion of region 1304. Portion 1306 ofinterface 1300 displays the recent activities of Alice's friends in adashboard format.

Region 1326 of interface 1300 indicates that four of Alice's friendshave dugg product 1324, the ACME MP3 player. Alice can also see which ofher friends have dugg product 1324 by hovering her input device over thedigg score box of product 1324. In some embodiments, Alice can interactwith region 1326, such as by being presented with a dialogue that offersto send an email to all of her friends listed in the region. In someembodiments, additional actions can be taken with product 1324. Forexample, Alice may be presented a “buy this product now” icon or link.

All of the views shown in FIG. 13A can be syndicated as RSS feeds byselecting RSS link 1320 on the appropriate page view. For example, ifAlice is a professional critic, users and those who choose not to useweb site 116 on a regular basis can syndicate comments that she makes onproducts, etc.

In some embodiments, profile visitors (including Alice) are presentedwith the option to search (1308) all of site 116 for product keywords(1310), search Alice's diggs for product keywords (1312), and/or searchdiggs made by Alice's friends for product keywords (1314). For example,a visitor to Alice's profile can search for MP3 players that she hasdugg or commented on. In some embodiments, search interface 1308includes the ability to filter results on meta information such asregions for DVDs, languages for books, etc. In some embodiments, views(and searches) can be limited by other factors, such as location(distance from Alice), availability (whether a product is in stock andhow quickly it can arrive), etc.

FIG. 13B illustrates an embodiment of an interface to a preferencesystem. The example shown is, as rendered in a browser, animplementation of a portion of website 116 that includes the ability tosubmit, digg, and comment on products. In this example, Alice hasselected to view products in the category, MP3 player, from a larger setof categories, such as those listed in region 1304 of FIG. 13A.

In the example shown, each product listing (1302, 1304) includes aphotograph of the MP3 player (1306), as well as a digg score/digg box(1308), title, description, etc. (1310). The MP3 players shown in thisexample are sorted by popularity.

On the right hand side are assorted graphs (1312, 1314) of informationassociated with the products shown. Graph 1312 compares the popularity(e.g. digg scores, number of comments recently made, etc.) of differentMP3 players against each other over time so that trends such as whichones are gaining in popularity and which ones are decreasing inpopularity can be visually determined.

In the example shown, the Acme F242 player is more popular than the Beta10 player. In some embodiments, the frequency with which a user visitspreference system is considered when determining the popularity of aproduct. For example, suppose the Beta 10 player has 165 diggs, 25 ofwhich were made by users who have not visited the preference system in 3months. In some embodiments, the diggs of those 25 users are expired.The product will remain listed in the absent user's profiles, but theirdiggs will not be included when calculating the popularity of theproduct.

Users also have the ability to undigg a product to indicate that they'vemoved onto something new. For example, suppose Alice currently has aBeta 10 player and is interested in upgrading. If she purchases an AcmeF242, she can visit her profile to undigg the Beta 10 and digg the AcmeF242. Her actions—undigging the Beta 10 and digging the Acme F242instead—will also be reflected in graph shown at 1312. For example, onthe day that she undiggs the Beta 10, its position along the verticalaxis will be decreased. On the day that she diggs the Acme F242, theAcme F242's position on the graph will similarly increase.

Graph 1312 also includes indications of the individual users who aretaking digging and undigging actions. For example, when Alice hovers hermouse over region 1318, she can see that a user, Mark, dugg the AcmeF242. Indications of actions taken by her friends are also included ongraph 1312. For example, regions associated with friends' diggs of theAcme F242 are highlight in green, or with avatars, or other indicatorsthat her friends have indicated preferences at a particular time. Forexample, Alice can use graph 1312 to determine that David dugg the Acme242 two months after Charlie dugg the Beta 10.

The information shown in FIG. 13B can also be generated based on one ormore searches in addition to or instead of tabbed browsing. For example,Alice could perform a search of “popular MP3 players at least one of myfriends owns” and see the information shown in FIG. 13B as a result.

In some embodiments, demographic information is displayed. For example,in graph 1314, the popularity of a particular MP3 player is broken downby assorted groups such as teens and adults, or girls and boys.Demographic information can similarly be included in a search so that,for example, a parent shopping for a present for his or her child canlocate the “hottest MP3 players among teenagers this week,” and the“most popular movie for women aged 20-30,” through a search interfaceconfigured to accept such queries.

FIG. 14 illustrates an embodiment of an interface to a preferencesystem. The example shown is an implementation of a portion of website116 which includes the ability to submit, digg, and comment onphotographs and video, as rendered in a browser. In the example shown,photograph 1402 was dugg by a friend, as indicated by banner 1404. Byselecting digg box 1406, a visitor can indicate a preference for thephotograph shown. In some embodiments, visitors indicate theirpreference for content such as video 1408 by selecting an icon such asicon 1410.

The content shown in interface 1400 can be presented in a variety ofways. For example, video content may be represented as an icon, such asthe filmstrip icon shown at 1408. A screen shot of the first frame ofthe video may also be shown, and interactions, such as hovering a mouseover region 1408 could trigger actions such as causing the video to beplayed in the browser.

In some cases, it may not be possible to embed the content directly intothe interface shown in FIG. 14. In such a case, the video is shown in aformat similar to story entry 170 (1416), and a preview button 1414 isincluded. When preview button 1414 is selected, a video player 1412automatically slides out in which the video can be displayed.

Permalink pages such as the one shown in FIG. 4 can be adapted forphotograph and video content as appropriate, and users may comment,blog, and take other actions with respect to visual and other content(such as songs) as appropriate.

Additional Embodiments

FIG. 15A illustrates an embodiment of a dynamic submission andpreference indicator. As described in more detail below, a dynamicsubmission and preference indicator (1502) can be incorporated into apage, such as web page 106 and encourages visitors to submit or digg thecontent they are viewing. Preference indicator 1502 displays one of twoimages based on whether web page 106's URL has been submitted topreference system 102 or not, and if so, what the digg score (172) ofthe story (podcast, video, etc.) is. In the example shown in FIG. 15A,the story appearing on page 106 has not yet been submitted to preferencesystem 102 and the indicator invites visitors to web page 106 to “submitto Digg” the story.

FIG. 15B illustrates an embodiment of a dynamic submission andpreference indicator. Suppose a visitor to web page 106 interacts withindicator 1502 as shown in FIG. 15A, for example by clicking on it. Asdescribed in more detail below, the story appearing on web page 106would then be submitted to preference system 102. Additionally, anysubsequent viewers of web page 106 (or the visitor, e.g., upon the pagerefreshing) would be presented with an indication of the current,real-time digg score of the story appearing on the page and be invitedto “digg” the story instead of submitting it. In the example shown inFIG. 15B, the story has been dugg 237 times. In some embodiments, if thevisitor is erroneously presented with the button shown at 1502 in FIG.5A (e.g., because the story appearing on page 106 was submitted byanother user after the visitor loaded page 106, but before the visitorrefreshed the page), if the visitor attempts to “submit to Digg” thestory, instead of being presented with an error, the visitor is directedto the permalink for the story.

FIG. 16 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process forincorporating a dynamic submission and preference indicator on a webpage. In some embodiments the process shown in FIG. 16 or portionsthereof is performed by the execution of code incorporated in web page106 (e.g., Javascript) or working in conjunction with web page 106(e.g., an API call), both of which are referred to herein for simplicityas being “executed by web page 106,” “performed by web page 106,” orusing similar language. In some embodiments the process shown in FIG. 16or portions thereof is performed by an administrator of web page 106 orby a combination of an administrator and web page 106.

The process begins at 1602 when content is provided. For example, at1602 a freelance writer writes a new blog post which is made availableon web page 106. Other examples of content provided at 1602 include theposting of photographs to a photograph service, the authoring of arestaurant or product review, and the uploading of a podcast or video toa host.

At 1604, a data snippet associated with the presence and/or status ofthe content within preference system 102 is obtained. The data snippetis used by web page 106 in conjunction with preference system 102 toobtain information about the presence of the content provided at 1602within preference system 102. The data snippet may take a variety offorms based on factors such as the architecture of web page 106, howmuch control the administrator of web page 106 has over web page 106,etc. Examples of data snippets are described in more detail below.Examples of ways in which data snippets can be obtained include byhaving the administrator of web page 106 use a documented API, havingthe author of web page 106 interact with a form provided by preferencesystem 102 or another external source (e.g., by entering the URL of page106 and other information and receiving back Javascript that can beincluded in page 106), etc. In some embodiments preference system 102makes available scripts, widgets, or other features that can be placedonto web page 106.

At 1606, the data snippet obtained at 1604 is incorporated into web page106 (and/or the site hosting web page 106). Incorporation may beperformed manually, such as by hand editing page 106, or may beperformed automatically. In some embodiments a system administratorassociated with web page 106 makes use of documented API calls toimplement the techniques described herein. In such a scenario, portion1604 of the process shown in FIG. 16 may be omitted or combined withportion 1606 as applicable.

FIG. 17 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process forindicating preference for a content contribution. In some embodimentsthe process shown in FIG. 17 is performed by web page 106. The processbegins at 1702 when preference system 102 is queried for the presence ofcontent. For example, at 1702, a query is submitted to preference system102 by using the data snippet obtained at 1604 in the process shown inFIG. 16. If preference system 102 determines (1704) that the content forwhich preference information is sought is present within preferencesystem 102, preference system 102 provides preference information whichis received by web page 106 at 1708. If preference system 102 determinesthat the content for which preference information is sought is notpresent within preference system 102, preference system 102 and web page106 cooperate to facilitate the submission of the content to preferencesystem 102 at 1706. In some embodiments web page 106 uses an iframeelement to render the received preference information to the visitor.

Suppose, for example, a photographer has recently uploaded a photographto a photograph sharing website, such as by performing portion 1602 ofthe process shown in FIG. 16. The photograph sharing website hasincorporated within it data snippets such as are obtained at portion1604 of the process shown in FIG. 16. When a visitor visits thephotographer's web page, a data snippet incorporated into that pagequeries preference system 102 to determine whether the photograph ispresent within preference system 102 or not. If the photograph is notpresent within preference system 102, at 1706, a button is displayed tothe visitor with the text label “This photograph is cool! Submit it forreview!” If the visitor clicks on the button, the URL of the photographis automatically submitted to preference system 102 as a contentsubmission. Information such as the category to which the photographbelongs (e.g., “sports” or “election”), the title of the photograph(e.g., “New world record caught on film”), and other submission-relatedinformation can be embedded in page 106 so that when the first visitordecides to submit the photograph to preference system 102, the relevantsubmission information is prefilled.

Other actions can also be employed, as applicable, such as byredirecting the visitor to a form into which the visitor can provideinformation about the photograph, creating a popup window solicitingadditional information, etc. If the photograph is already present withinpreference system 102, at 1708 web page 106 informs the visitor whatother individuals' preference for the photograph are, e.g. via textand/or a score (“200 people like this photo”), via icons (showing aflame next to the photograph if a threshold number of individuals ratethe photograph), or with other indicators, such as sounds or animations.If the visitor clicks on the button, examples of appropriate actionsinclude that the digg count of the photograph be increased, that thevisitor be taken to the permalink page of the photograph, that thevisitor's cookies be evaluated to determine whether the visitor has anaccount with preference system 102 in conjunction with either of theseactions, etc.

FIG. 18 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process forindicating preference for content contribution. In some embodiments theprocess shown in FIG. 18 is performed by preference system 102. Theprocess begins at 1802 when a query for the presence of content isreceived. For example, at 1802, a query is received by system 102 froman API call made by web page 106. If preference system 102 determines(1804) that the content for which preference information is sought ispresent within preference system 102, preference system 102 providespreference information to the requester at 1808. If preference system102 determines that the content for which preference information issought is not present within preference system 102, preference system102 (e.g., in conjunction with the requester) facilitates the submissionof the content to preference system 102 at 1806.

FIG. 19 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process forindicating preference for a content contribution. In some embodimentsthe process shown in FIG. 19 is performed by preference system 102. Theprocess begins at 1902 when a request for information associated with acontent contribution is received. For example a request like thatsubmitted at 1702 in FIG. 17 or like the received at 1802 in FIG. 18 isreceived at 1902.

At 1904, the status of the content contribution is determined. Examplesof status that can be determined at 1904 include whether the contentcontribution was previously submitted to preference system 102, if so,how many diggs (or other positive preference events) the contentcontribution has received, whether the content contribution has receivedany burries (or other negative preference events), how many commentshave been received, etc. In some embodiments the request may containadditional parameters, such as ones requesting the returned status belimited to particular types of status information (e.g., preferenceevents in the last 12 months, number of comments received on thecontent's permalink page but not number of diggs, preference events fromusers of preference system 102 who are also users of the site hostingweb page 106, preference events from certain demographics or groups ofindividuals, etc.). The status received can also be customized, bysystem 102, page 106, and/or both, based on the type of content forwhich preference information is sought. For example, if the content is apodcast, one set of images might be used, while if the content is aproduct, another set might be used. In the case of a restaurant, thenumber of diggs might be returned, along with additional information,such as the most recent review.

At 1906, the status of the content contribution is returned. In theexample shown in FIG. 19, whether or not the content contribution isalready present within preference system 102 is treated as a preferenceand portions of the processing shown in FIGS. 17 and 18 are omitted asapplicable. For example, preference system 102 may be configured torespond only if it has data associated with the content contribution andotherwise to send a null value back to page 106, instead of or inaddition to facilitating the submission of the content contribution.

FIG. 20 illustrates an example of a data snippet according to oneembodiment and example responses. In the example shown, when web page106 submits an HTTP request to preference system 102 using the URL shownat 2002 (requesting preference information for the content located athttp://diggtheblog.com), preference system 102 will respond with thenull data shown at 2006 if the URL has not yet been submitted topreference system 102 (e.g. via the submission process shown in FIG. 2)and will respond with the XML shown at 2004 if the URL was previouslysubmitted to preference system 102. Examples of the information providedby preference system 102 include that the content has received 2127diggs, 171 comments, and has been promoted. The received information canbe used by web page 106 to render preference information for visitors toweb page 106 according to formatting rules specified by page 106. Thereceived information can also be used in conjunction with defaultimages, widgets, or other stock indicators provided by preference system102. For example, if the null result is received, the button shown at1502 if in FIG. 15A can be rendered for the viewer of page 106. If theXML shown at 2004 is received, the button shown at 1502 in FIG. 15B canbe rendered instead.

FIG. 21A illustrates an example of a data snippet. The example shown isused in some embodiments by web page 106 to indicate that a dynamicsubmission and preference indicator should be shown on web page 106 andprovide information about the preference for a content submissionincluded on web page 106.

FIG. 21B illustrates an example of a data snippet. The example shown isused in some embodiments by one web page to indicate that a dynamicsubmission and preference indicator should be shown on that web page andprovide information about the preference for a content submissionincluded on a different web page. The snippet shown in FIG. 21B can alsobe used to provide user-specific and/or session data in the URL and theresulting indicator to use a specific version of the URL. The snippetcan also be used to have multiple indicators on the same page.

FIG. 21C illustrates an example of a data snippet. The example shown isused in some embodiments to change the appearance of the indicator.Parameters such as the background color of a button (digg_bgcolor), thesize of the button (digg_skin), and whether clicks should open a newwindow or remain within the same window (digg_window) can be specified.

FIG. 21D illustrates an example of a data snippet. The example shown isused in some embodiments to specify defaults for submission. Informationsuch as the type of content (digg_media), the topic (e.g., politics orsports), the title, and description of the content can be prefilled. Insome embodiments when a visitor submits the content on page 106 topreference system 102, the visitor is presented with the prefilledinformation as part of the submission process, but is also permitted tooverwrite the information. In other cases, certain fields (e.g., title)may not be changed by the submitting visitor.

In some embodiments, the dynamic submission and preference indicator isbranded, e.g., by the site hosting web page 106. For example, supposeweb page 106 is the front page of a national newspaper's website andlists all of the articles that appeared in the daily version of thenewspaper and is a partner of the entity that controls preference system102. In that scenario, the national newspaper may not wish for itsvisitors to be directed away from the website hosting page 106, and/orwould like to have control over the user experience visitors will havewhen logging into/being directed to website 116. In such a case, webpage 106 may have incorporated within it a link of the form:http://digg.com/remote-submit?phase=2&url=www.example.com&title=StoryTitle&bodytext=StoryDescription&topic=YourSelectedTopic”. The URL and associated popup code can also beobfuscated to help prevent third parties from copying the code andimplementing it for themselves. When the dynamic submission andpreference indicator is manipulated by a visitor in this scenario, a newwindow is opened and specially formatted versions of the submit,permalink, login, registration, and other screens are presented, insteadof the default versions that would be presented if the visitor visitedwebsite 116 directly. Additionally, the submission process may beconfigured to not require submitters from the national newspaper'swebsite to login to preference system 102.

The specially formatted pages allow the users of the partner site to notfeel like they have left the partner site, so that when they havesubmitted content to preference system 102, they can more easily return(or remember to return) to page 106. In some embodiments, if a visitoris put in contact with preference system 102 via a partner site such asthe national newspaper website (e.g., by clicking a “submit to digg”button), but is not currently registered with preference system 102, thesubmission is “held” by preference system 102 until the user completes aregistration, but upon completion of the registration, the submission isreleased from the hold and the user is directed to the permalink for thepage that they submitted.

Although the foregoing embodiments have been described in some detailfor purposes of clarity of understanding, the invention is not limitedto the details provided. There are many alternative ways of implementingthe invention. The disclosed embodiments are illustrative and notrestrictive.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of operating an automated preferencesystem comprising one or more processors, the method comprising:providing to an external web site a data snippet configured to query thepreference system regarding a status of a content item available at theexternal web site; receiving the query regarding the status of thecontent item when the content item is displayed to a visitor to theexternal web site; operating the one or more processors to: determinewhether the content item has been submitted to the preference system;and if the content item has been submitted to the preference system,retrieving stored preference information regarding the content item; andin response to the query, returning for display with the content item: afirst control selectable by the visitor to submit the content item tothe preference system, if the content item has not been submitted to thepreference system; or a second control selectable by the visitor tosubmit a positive preference event to the preference system regardingthe content item, if the content item has been submitted to thepreference system.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising, inresponse to the query: returning the preference information, with thesecond control, for display with the content item.
 3. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the second control comprises the preferenceinformation.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the preferenceinformation comprises a count of one or more types of preference eventsinitiated by viewers of the content item.
 5. The method of claim 1,wherein the preference information comprises a count of positivepreference events initiated by viewers of the content item.
 6. Themethod of claim 5, further comprising: receiving a signal indicatingselection of the second control; and further operating the one or moreprocessors to increase the count of positive preference eventsassociated with the content item.
 7. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: receiving a signal indicating actuation of the firstcontrol; and further operating the one or more processors to facilitatesubmission of the content item to the preference system by the visitor.8. The method of claim 1, wherein the data snippet is executable code.9. The method of claim 1, wherein the data snippet is an executablescript.
 10. The method of claim 1, wherein determining whether thecontent item has been submitted to the preference system comprises:determining whether the preference system possesses the requestedpreference information.
 11. The method of claim 1, wherein determiningwhether the content item has been submitted to the preference systemcomprises: determining whether the preference system has received anypreference events for the content item.
 12. A computer program productembodied in a non-transient computer readable storage medium andcomprising computer instructions executed at an automated preferencesystem for: providing to an external web site a data snippet configuredto query the preference system regarding a status of a content itemavailable at the external web site; receiving the query regarding thestatus of the content item when the content item is displayed to avisitor to the external web site; determining whether the content itemhas been submitted to the preference system; if the content item hasbeen submitted to the preference system, retrieving stored preferenceinformation regarding the content item; and in response to the query,returning for display with the content item: a first control selectableby the visitor to submit the content item to the preference system, ifthe content item has not been submitted to the preference system; or asecond control selectable by the visitor to submit a positive preferenceevent to the preference system regarding the content item, if thecontent item has been submitted to the preference system.
 13. Anautomated preference system, comprising: one or more processors; and amemory coupled with the one or more processors, wherein the memory isconfigured to provide the one or more processors with instructions that,when executed, cause the one or more processors to: provide to anexternal web site a data snippet configured to query the preferencesystem regarding a status of a content item available at the externalweb site; receive the query regarding the status of the content itemwhen the content item is displayed to a visitor to the external website; determine whether the content item has been submitted to thepreference system; if the content item has been submitted to thepreference system, retrieve stored preference information regarding thecontent item; and in response to the query, return for display with thecontent item: a first control selectable by the visitor to submit thecontent item to the preference system, if the content item has not beensubmitted to the preference system; or a second control selectable bythe visitor to submit a positive preference event to the preferencesystem regarding the content item, if the content item has beensubmitted to the preference system.
 14. The system of claim 13, whereinthe memory is further configured to provide the one or more processorswith instructions that, when executed, cause the one or more processorsto: return the preference information, with the second control, fordisplay with the content item.
 15. The system of claim 13, wherein thesecond control comprises the preference information.
 16. The system ofclaim 13, wherein the preference information comprises a count of one ormore types of preference events initiated by viewers of the contentitem.
 17. The system of claim 13, wherein the preference informationcomprises a count of positive preference events initiated by viewers ofthe content item.
 18. The system of claim 17, wherein the memory isfurther configured to provide the one or more processors withinstructions that, when executed, cause the one or more processors to:receive a signal indicating selection of the second control; and furtheroperate the one or more processors to increase the count of positivepreference events associated with the content item.
 19. The system ofclaim 13, wherein the memory is further configured to provide the one ormore processors with instructions that, when executed, cause the one ormore processors to: receive a signal indicating actuation of the firstcontrol; and further operate the one or more processors to facilitatesubmission of the content item to the preference system by the visitor.20. The system of claim 13, wherein the data snippet is executable code.21. The system of claim 13, wherein the data snippet is an executablescript.
 22. The system of claim 13, wherein determining whether thecontent item has been submitted to the preference system comprises:determining whether the preference system possesses the requestedpreference information.
 23. The system of claim 13, wherein determiningwhether the content item has been submitted to the preference systemcomprises: determining whether the preference system has received anypreference events for the content item.